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Well I think you're oversimplifying things quite a bit here, but I agree that resources alone aren't enough. However, they are still important - without some sort of natural resources, a developing country has little chance of success. Even if they have the strongest and most stable government in the world, a country with nothing but desert and marginal pastureland can't do much for its people. However, given that southern Sudan does have resources, and that the successful running of the referendum indicates some level of organization competence, I think dismissing them out of hand is a bit much at this point.

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

What country are you from again?

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

China is already divvying out the rings of power in africa.

One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all,
and in the darkness bind them.

Canada. Are you suggesting we don't have any natural resources?

Laelia Komi Anomalocaris

No large fresh water resources.
No mineral resources.
No farmland.
No harvesting of fish.
No oil.
No land.

Canada has nothing.

This essentially ignores the United States, which did not have a strong central authority for the first 150-160 years of its existence. I think it could be reasonably argued that decentralized authority worked far better, at least in this country.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

For some reason I thought you were Kiwi.



Are you kidding? We definitely did.

We had the federal government, with a monopoly on currency, the military, interstate commerce, international affairs, and civil law. It's because of the federal government that if you scam people in Virginia you can be extradited to New Jersey. It's because of the federal government that Pennsylvania and New York don't go to war or wage trade wars whenever they disagree on an issue. It's because of the federal government that we bought up Louisiana and Alaska and conquered what is today the western third of the United States. It's because of the federal government that we don't have local warlords or local governments being held up at gunpoint, that we have a stable currency that is worth more than toilet paper. There was a time before we did have a single currency, and it sucked.

The Civil War was what really made the federal government a strong and stable institution that has allowed our country to be great. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died in that war, but it ultimately ensured that the country would stay together and not split up whenever there was some sort of disagreement, which meant that we had a solid political basis upon which to deal with problems as they cropped up over the years.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

tbf they've got 10 months of snow

does shitty weather count as a resource?

I think you're being a bit liberal about what constitutes a strong central authority. Most of what you list as exercises of federal power, such as the power to make war and issue the currency, are specifically delegated to the federal government. The states retained much broader powers until the 1940s, when the federal government assumed a much larger role through manipulation of the commerce clause (see Wickard v. Filburn). The US gained its standing as a world power by building on what came before the usurpation of state/local power by the redefinition of the commerce clause, and it could easily be argued that our standing in the world has been greatly diminished since power has become more centralized, and quite possibly because it has become more centralized.

The issue of central authority and limits on federal power are key in the recent decision in FL that found the new healthcare bill unconstitutional. Many of your examples of central authority were more authoritarian than most would consider our form of government to be. Building roads and printing currency are a far cry from feeding Christians to the lions (and I do realize there was more to Roman governance than such things), and our government wasn't as involved as deeply in so many minor details as some of your examples until the last 50-75 years.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

Thats for sure. NC, for example, was hardly worth mentioning infrastructure-wise until civil war era.


RIP Rip Van Winkle

The federal government was quite strong during the Marshall Court as well. It got stuck from 1890 to 1937 because a bunch of conservatives declared any action by the feds that wasn't expressly written into the Constitution as being unconstitutional. When FDR rolled into his second term and backed them into a corner (made them realize they were feeding everyone shit when they kept forcing the government to back down on commerce-clause related regulation, which was fucking everyone royal in terms of economy), everything started making sense again. A strong federal government is the only way this country gets anything done, and states' rights has always been used as an excuse to oppose progress.

If destruction exists, we must destroy everything.
Shuruppak Yuratuhl
Slaad Shrpk Breizh

That's because, if you actually read the document as written, any authority/responsibility not specifically delegated to/reserved for the federal government was given to the states and the people. The idea that jurists ruled according to the actual wording of the law because of their political leanings is ridiculous until you get to the court under FDR, when they re-imagined the meanings of words and phrases to justify what should have been accomplished by amendment. The idea that growing wheat in your back yard when you're not even selling it to anyone constitutes commerce, much less interstate commerce, is an incredible stretching of the law to mean things other than what it says.


What "fucks everyone royal" in the economy is Washington picking the winners and losers so that politicians can give their pet lobbies benefits at the expense of the American people. We'll bail out Co. X, but not Co. Y, even though they're in the same line of business with the same problems, it's just that no one at Co. Y donated to the president's campaign but Co. X did. Both companies should have been allowed to fail. It also "fucks everyone royal" when, instead of allowing market adjustments/corrections to take care of price problems with commodities like...just for an example...wheat and housing, the government instead meddles in the market and artificially inflates the prices of those commodities, creating a bubble that does more damage in the long wrong by delaying natural price corrections.
Policing the markets (outside of preventing fraud) is not one among the many roles the government should fill, but if it is, we should amend the Constitution to reflect that, not just ignore the letter of the law (or pretend it says things it doesn't) like children with their hands over their ears yelling "lalalalalalalalalalaIcan'thearyou."

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

Meanwhile, back on topic:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/ ... rauthammer



Now that Mubarak's supporters have taken to the streets, violence has broken out. While the Egyptian military has pledged not to become involved, heeding calls not to turn on the citizenry, it may be time for the organization, in light of the conspicuously absent police forces to act to restore order.

Your Pal,
Jubber

AKA "The Gun"
AKA "ROFeraL"

World Renowned Mexican Forklift Artiste

Mubarak gave an interview yesterday and said he's "fed up" with politics and wishes he could leave office now, but can't.

I think he's obviously a pretty crappy president...but I can kind of see his point about the fact that if he leaves now, the country could decend into chaos. The last thing we need is another country being run by

A: a military
B: an overzealous religious regime (in this case The Muslim Brotherhood).

Problem is, I don't think the people are going to stop protesting until he actually steps down....sooo yea, Egypt is lost as a US ally, we just need to say eff it.

Muslim Brotherhood isn't any more extremist than the German Christian Democrats. We can be friends with them simply by choosing to not be their enemies.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.